On the heels of the Aug. 16 bill-signing ceremony at the White House, a new University of Michigan study finds that making the switch to all-electric mail-delivery vehicles would lead to far greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than previously estimated by the USPS.
In its analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle program, the Postal Service underestimated the expected greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles and overestimated the emissions tied to battery-electric vehicles, according to U-M researchers.
“Our paper highlights the fact that the USPS analysis is significantly flawed, which led them to dramatically underestimate the benefits of BEVs, which could have impacted their decision-making process,” said Maxwell Woody, lead author of the new study, published online Aug. 26 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology
